Weekend & Family Friday: Organic Mushroom Growing Kit

This isn’t really parenting related, but I have been dealing with a breast tumor. At each stage, the doctor downplays the risk, but escalates, and each stage takes longer. My ob/gyn found a breast lump at my annual appointment. It is pretty large, I can easily feel it now, but I was not really looking for lumps, because I had only weaned about three months previously, and I was used to having lumpy breasts. She sent me to for a mammogram and ultrasound, but thought it was probably nothing, a clogged milk duct or a cyst, especially because of my recent breastfeeding. She said they would tell me the good news right away.

I was able to schedule the mammogram and ultrasound for two days later. After those, the radiologist came in, and said I needed a biopsy. When I started crying, she asked if I was upset about the biopsy or the possibility of cancer. When I said it was the cancer, she said she thought there was a 98% chance that it is not cancer, given my age (41) and recent breastfeeding, and she only wanted the biopsy because it is so big (3.3 cm).

I schedule the biopsy for the soonest available, which was a week later. The procedure was no big deal, and I was only slightly sore. I was supposed to get the results in three business days, but they were significantly delayed by the snowstorm and cold weather here in Texas. At least the cold indoor temperatures, worry about my children, and cleaning up from the burst pipe distracted me from the biopsy results. I got the results after a week and a half, and it was benign but high risk, and that I should make an appointment with a breast surgeon. In my daze from being happy it was not malignant, but still worried about the “high risk” classification, I forgot to ask what exactly the results were.

I made an appointment with the PA at the breast surgeon’s office for three days later. She gave me the detailed results, and was generally reassuring. The biopsy indicated that it was either a fibroadenoma or a benign phyllodes tumor. The PA said that a fibroadenoma basically does not change my lifetime risk of breast cancer, at worse increases it by 1.5 times, but probably less than that, but that the phyllodes tumor has a risk of local recurrence. I scheduled the lumpectomy for slightly more than three weeks out (two weeks now). The pathology report from the whole tumor should be conclusive, but it will be 7-10 days after the surgery.

The waiting is killing me. I also did some research on phyllodes tumors, which was not very reassuring. Phyllodes tumors can be benign, borderline, or malignant, and even benign phyllodes tumors have been known to metastasize. The prognosis of phyllodes tumors that metastasize is “dismal.” Phyllodes tumors are so rare that all of the studies are retrospective (aka see what happened after the fact) and mostly covering a very low number of cases. For example, one study had a 100% survival rate for benign phyllodes tumors, but only had eight cases. The worst statistic I saw was a 96% survival rate for benign phyllodes tumors. It does seem like some of the bad outcomes were caused by insufficient margins from removal, because they are so hard to diagnose in advance.

Has anyone tried Cook Unity? (Its a meal delivery service).

Our lovely school district has come up with yet another way to avoid teaching. We now have “flexible learning days” on which all kids, both in-person and on-line, stay home and work on non-credit assignments such as “read a book” or “look at a website.” This allows them to hold teacher meetings and training without losing required instructional days. Best of all, this is not just a pandemic thing; there will be several “flexible learning days” each year in perpetuity. Fortunately, my kid is old enough to leave home alone, but I am angry on behalf of all parents of younger kids who will now have to take even more days off of work to supervise their kids on flexible learning days. I am also angry that this will cost us a week of actual instructional time each year. They already quit teaching new material in March to start reviewing for the state tests, so losing another week is really quite a blow.

I have some playroom questions….we half-heartedly repurposed the dining room into a playroom during the pandemic (pushed the dining room table against a wall, moved their tiny ikea table and a few toys in there) and I’m thinking about doing it more seriously. So first, any idea what height table is good for a 3yo and 5yo? Something they can use for at least 3 years, ideally. Second, is it worth putting a loveseat or comfy chair in there? I’m imagining reading the newspaper while they hang out and play. Anything else that’s been awesome in your playroom? We’ve got “stuff” storage covered; they have one shelf for toys and one stuff for art supplies, and I rotate items in and out. It’s more about setting up a space for pretend play/creating/etc.

FWIW the room is central in our house and open to our living room, and the kids play in there a fair bit already.

For anyone who continued breastfeeding after going back to work: Did any of you have issues with the baby rejecting nursing and preferring bottles? I am starting work on Monday and we had introduced bottles with pumped milk in preparation. Last week, the baby would not nurse and only take bottles. We are back to normal right now, but I am afraid we might have a repeat next week when, inevitably, he will be bottle-fed during the day.